King Henry VIII and The Portrait of a Lady
by MorgieSan
Summary: A discussion had by our favorite detective and her author after an incredibly long couple of days. Inspired partly by chezchuckles and 'Things To Do In A Boring Meeting'.


Notes: First story in months, and I put all blame for this idea on the lovely and talented chezchuckles and her 2 AM fluff. I haven't forgotten about Être, but if you want more you need to go fuss at Hallow777. She knows why I won't post it. I also wrote this and am uploading it from my phone, I tried to catch my errors before I posted, but we all make mistakes, so holler if you see one I missed.

Disclaimer: So very not mine.

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She had never, in her 33 years, been this exhausted. It seeped into her bones and made her blood sluggish and heavy. Every blink was longer than the last, but she fought back against it. Unwilling to give up ground.

"Close your eyes, Kate. Take a nap."

"No." Her voice was quiet and her tone firm.

"Sleep, Kate," he whispered, brushing the pad of his thumb down the bridge of her nose.

"No." She could hear the exhaustion in her own voice, the rough crack. "Don't wanna."

"You need to sleep, Kate. He'll still be here when you wake up."

"Please," she begged, "just a few more minutes."

Reluctantly, he nodded and stooped to press a kiss to her forehead. His wife and son.

She had started her maternity leave barely 24 hours ago, and he just couldn't wait any longer. Their little boy was so impatient to greet them. 18 hours of labor and she still hadn't slept. He wasn't sure when she last slept. He wast sure when _he_ had last slept, but he wasn't the one who had expelled just over eight pounds of human five-and-a-half hours ago.

"You look tired," she murmured, tearing her eyes away from their son.

"Pot, meet Kettle."

"Plenty of room. Come lay down with me." She shifted until her body was pressed to the railing of the hospital bed, and freed a hand to pat the open space. "Promise not to bite."

He gave her a lop-sided grin and reached for the baby, who she readily handed over. Not a hair on his head and the biggest, bluest eyes either of them had ever seen, and he was perfect. This odd mixture of them that seemed to change as you looked at him.

"See, you can't stop looking at him once you start," she teased, punctuating with jaw unhinging yawn.

Rick pressed a gentle kiss to the baby's forehead and lowered him into the glass bassinet, his temporary home. "Just trying to figure out a good name."

"You are the one who insisted he was going to be a girl. I _tried_ to get you to make a list of boy names, but noooo."

He tossed her a scowl as he rolled the baby right over to the edge of the bed, where she could easily reach him.

"C'mon, Loverboy, need my teddy bear if I'm going to be forced to sleep."

"I don't think I can be a teddy bear if I'm the big spoon," he teased as he rounded the bed to climb into the open space. "Matter of fact, I think it makes _you my_ teddy bear."

"Stop ruining my story with your logic," she scolded as she pressed the button to lower the bed.

He slid one arm under her pillow to search out the hand he knew was tucked under it, and wrapped the other around her middle, settling his palm over the scar between her milk-heavy breasts. "'s my line, Kate."

"Mmm, no, you told me 'What's mine is yours.' I remember," she mumbled curling into his warmth.

He grinned and kissed the closest patch of skin he could reach, which happened to be the ticklish spot behind her ear, and tucked her in closer to him. "It's weird doing this and having him way over there."

"'Way over there,' a whole eight inches... I know."

He hooked his chin over her shoulder and they watched the steady rise and fall of the yellow blanket that swaddled their son. It still knocked him for a loop. Kate gave him a son; the other part of his brain argued that, no, he gave her the son, since that was, after all, what he had provided. Our son, he thought, kicking his thoughts back onto the track.

"Yeah," she grinned, "our son."

"d'I say that out loud?"

"Yeah."

"Mmm, what about your dad?"

"What about him?" She was awake, but only barely.

"What if we name him after your dad? Was a king too."

"You..." She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He was honoring her father and being entirely too clever how tired they were. She let a chuckle escape, a silent breathy thing that did nothing more than rattle her ribcage really. "King Richard, King James, you're cute. Doesn't work though. All the Katherine's were married to Henry the 8th, and he killed one of them."

"Another good name. Good author too."

She furrowed her brow, her brain feeling far too sluggish to make the jump from King Henry to 'The Portrait of a Lady'."

"Henry James, Kate."

"Henry James Castle," she murmured, tasting the name on her tongue. "I like it." She extended her arm and stroked her fingers over the baby's soft cheek. "Do you like it, baby?"

He cooed under his mother's touch, and stilled as his lips smacked. They picked a terrible time to go to sleep.

"Let me up, Henry's hungry."


End file.
